


Memories of Waking Nightmares

by LosttotheHoping



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemy to Ally, F/M, Present Tense, Romance, deserted island
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LosttotheHoping/pseuds/LosttotheHoping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she wakes up not knowing where she is or how she got there, Natasha's only clues are the clothes on her back and a nearby crater. But as someone - or some<em>thing</em> - is stalking her with unknown intentions, the mystery of her arrival may be the least of her concerns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spy Awakens

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you in advanced for reading. I would greatly appreciate comments/reviews or PMs about this. This story is my exploration into the characterization of Natasha _and_ Loki, and what it would take for them to be able to come to a point where they _can_ love each other, rather than view each other as enemies. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, many thank yous to Bloody Angel X for his help with the summary. You're a lifesaver, BAX!

Natasha wakes up to the soft sound of surf, and birdsong.  There is a decent breeze that smells of salt and algae coming up off the water nearby.  She thinks she can almost hear the world breathing, it’s so peaceful, and maybe she spends longer than she should entertaining the thought of going back to sleep.

Except she knows she can’t, because this isn’t where she went to bed; hell she can’t even _remember_ where she went to bed.  Not to mention her body aches, a residual burn from struggle or perhaps some sort of drug.  And anyway, she can’t recognize anything, no matter which way she turns her head.

With a gargantuan sigh, she pushes herself up into a sitting position, only to pause as the Earth tilts and twists like a crazy kaleidoscope of epic doom.   _And I’m starting to sound like Clint- that’s definitely a bad sign._

She somehow manages to swallow the accompanying nausea, and climbs slowly and carefully to her feet.  That’s when she realizes someone’s watching her, but no matter where she looks or how hard she listens, she can’t detect who or from where.  It’s just that prickle on the back of her neck, the instinct she’s learned to heed, that’s telling her she’s not alone.

Instead of calling out, trying to locate them, she pretends she never noticed, and goes about stretching her limbs.  They still ache like crazy, but it’s getting less intense with every new movement.  Once she’s confident that she won’t get another dizzy spell and keel over, she turns to better survey her surroundings.

To her left, the ocean, vast and limitless.  There isn’t a vessel or land in sight, and that worries her a bit, especially when she eyes the curve of the beach about a mile away before her, and more water beyond that to the horizon.  Behind her is a shorter stretch of white and blue, but the same as the other side.  And to her right is a thick forest.  She hopes it leads onto a larger portion of land, but doesn’t let herself count on it.

With nowhere else to go, she heads into the forest, away from the hot beat of the mid-afternoon sun.  The birdsong gets louder for a while, as she picks her way over roots and underbrush, and then everything gets quiet.  Very quiet.

It doesn’t take her long to find out why.  There is a crater in the forest, and recently broken trees, as if something had fallen to Earth.  But she can see no space rock, no debris from anything that might suggest what had been there.  The very center of the impact site is almost body-shaped, in that nauseating cartoony way that really shouldn’t be a possibility.

She doesn’t let herself think of aliens just yet, and moves beyond the crater and further into the forest.

Eventually, Natasha comes upon an amazing-looking river, and she kneels beside it to drink more than she probably should.  It’s fresh and clean, and gives her hope.  Surely a _small_ island wouldn’t have a river this size.

As she kneels there, she can feel the watcher again, but he still hasn’t approached.  He hasn’t made an attempt to attack her, or confront her, or anything, and she wonders what he’s waiting for.  Or perhaps he’s scared.  Was he the one that fell to the ground, made that crater?

If he is, she doubts he’s the sort to be afraid, at least not of a _human_ ….

Natasha’s stomach rumbles then, telling her that she’s been conscious for at least three hours, wandering the forest, and she hasn’t eaten a thing.  So she searches the riverbed for a sharp rock, and then the forest for a long stick.  It takes barely any effort to gather the items, but she falls short when she realizes she has nothing to tie them together.

Her eyes lower to her clothing, and she grimaces- she’d rather not, if she can figure anything else out.  She goes looking for vines, and when she returns to the place she’d started at with one, finishes her task.  The river has plenty of fish, which she goes after with her makeshift spear.

It takes an hour as she stands still in the water, but Natasha is patient, and soon the fish drift close, closer, and she gets three in quick order.  The fire is actually easier to make, and she pulls a blade out of the clasp on the small of her back to gut the fish as a large rock heats.  By the time the sun is setting, she’s carefully chewing cooked, bland fish meat.

And he’s still watching.  She can feel his gaze on her as the night cools, as the third fish goes uneaten.

Like with the fish, Natasha waits.

xXx

She dozed off at some point.  She can’t remember when, only being tired and feeling a bit lonely.  She still doesn’t remember how she got here, or why.

The fish is still there, cooked and untouched, and she figures he didn’t need to take the bait.  She eats it for breakfast, scatters the remnants of her cold fire, and continues searching the forest, this time following the river.

Within the hour, the terrain starts moving up, and soon enough she’s forced to stop or depart from the river.  She wastes an hour catching a few more fish, and another hour after that cooking them and fashioning a bag from the large leaves of some sort of tropical plant.  She ties the bag to her belt and departs from the river after scattering the coals of the fire.

As she wanders, she still feels her companion’s gaze on her, watching and following, and she’s beginning to appreciate how strange it is that they both woke up so close to each other.  The island is huge, with its own mountain even, and she can’t help but wonder at the coincidence.  Or perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

Mostly, though, Natasha is still trying to puzzle out how she even got here.  Nothing she’s seen since waking up yesterday has been familiar, not even the plant life or animals.  Hell, she’s pretty sure the fish she’d eaten last night were some shade of _purple_.

The last thing she remembers before the beach is talking to Clint on a mission, his steady voice being sarcastic in her ear.  She remembers him making a quip about their mark, a middle aged man with far too many pizzas under his belt.

Natasha almost wishes she could be back there, doing that mission with Clint.  She can’t recall whether or not she even finished it, and that more than anything else concerns her.  Was Clint okay?  Did he see what happened?  Was he _here_ somewhere?

But no, now that she thinks about it, she wants to say she’d finished the mission.  She wasn’t in battle gear, after all, but a less armed, casual outfit.

Which _really_ worries her, a _lot_.  Because that means there’s a whole chunk of memory missing, that has nothing to do with her current predicament but still isn’t coming back to her.  
  
She exhales and pushes the thoughts away, focusing on the here and now as she continues to wind her way through the trees along the base of a very steep mountainside.  She can still feel him watching her.

A few hours pass before she finds another river, this one smaller than the last, but faster.  She drinks and sets up camp for the night, as the woods are growing darker and closer.  She leaves a fish out again, on the pretense of heating it up while she goes to bathe in the river.

When she comes back, the fish is once again still there, so she eats it, and settles in for the night.

xXx

Sometime in the night, Natasha awakes to the sound of something large moving through the forest.  She gets up and pulls up her spear, crouching near the embers of her fire as she waits.  A huge creature comes out of the darkness and lunges for her.  It’s a quick black mass that she barely avoids, with thick fur and nasty claws.

She doesn’t attempt to kill it with her spear, because then she would lose the spear, but lures it closer to the river.  It was fast enough that when she’d bathed earlier, she’d had to stay on the bank, and should be enough to deal with this _six_ legged animal.

When she gets to the water’s edge, she waits for the creature to charge again, and dodges at the last second.  It works like a charm, but its terrified screams are almost too much.  Too _human_.  She wants to cover her ears, but instead retreats to her camp fire and puts it out.

She can’t stay here anymore, the noise would have attracted more attention than she’s comfortable with.

xXx

She sleeps later into the day after finding a new place - this time in a tree - to sleep that night.  When she wakes, there’s some sort of jungle cat eying her almost boredly from one branch up.  It tilts its head when she stiffens and meets its gaze, and edges closer to her along the branch.

Natasha bites the metaphorical bullet and slides right out of the tree, landing on the ground with a jarring thud.  The cat, when she catches her abandoned breath and looks up, is now on her branch peering down at her curiously.

She exhales and slowly gets up, eyes never leaving the animal.  Except, now the sleek black creature seems completely interested in her, and those curious green eyes follow her movements to gather her few things.  She carefully makes her way through the trees, putting as much distance between them as she can without seeming like prey.

After a while, she judges it safe to stop worrying about the cat, and picks up her pace, spear in hand and bag of fish on her hip.  She nibbles at one of the fish as she walks, eying her surroundings.  It all looks a bit familiar, but after almost three days in this intolerable wilderness, _everything_ almost looks the same.

She comes upon a small pond in the early afternoon, and spends some time drinking and washing her hands and face.  She can’t tell if her stalker from the days before is still following her, but almost misses the sensation of being watched.  It had been company, if nothing else.

An almost silent shift of sound behind her draws her attention, and she whips around… to find the cat settling itself on its haunches.   _Ah_ , his haunches.  Those green eyes are watching her curiously, and Natasha wonders why he’s continued to follow her all morning.  This is _not_ normal cat behavior.

Even as she watches, he gets up and wanders over to the pond to drink, watching her from the corner of his eyes.  She feels like hes testing her reactions, and shifts out of reach but doesn’t otherwise move from her general spot.

She’s also considering talking to him, but that probably wouldn’t be too sane, and wouldn’t get her anywhere.  She eventually decides to do it anyway.

“What _do_ you want?” she asks him, like he’ll actually answer her.

Of course he doesn’t.  Instead, he snorts and finishes drinking before slinking off into the forest.  Probably to follow her at a distance again.

A thought strikes her then.  Was this cat the thing following her from that first day?  She’d assumed it was whatever humanoid creature had made that crater, but that didn’t mean she was right.

It’s just another thing for her to consider as she grabs her bag and sets out again.  She’s unwilling to linger anywhere long, with the cat so close.

The day is hotter in the afternoon than she remembers it being, and only starts to cool again after the sun has sunk and true darkness sets in.  Natasha doesn’t let herself stop, because she can feel the watcher again, and is pretty sure its the cat now.

Except somewhere around midnight, she literally steps right into a snake nest (or something like a snake), and can feel the burning pain of a bite instantly.  With little pause, she cuts the creature off, and throws it away before pulling the head out.

She’s forced to stop then, but puts a bit of distance between herself and the former nest - just in case - before she can tend to her wound.

Natasha doesn’t let herself contemplate an untimely death, even as her knife slices through the injury, and blood pours out more thickly.  She knows she probably can’t much afford to lose this blood, but has little choice.  After a few minutes, she cuts away the bottom of her shirt and fashions a make-shift bandage over her lower leg, tying it off as tightly as she can, and drifts into a cold, restless sleep.

She doesn’t wake up the next morning.

xXx

Somewhere in a fog of pain and fever, Natasha acknowledges that she had been poisoned.  She drags herself into a tree, or she’s pretty sure she did, because she’s in one.  She’s tied firmly in place, and her bandage is soaked with blood.  She’s having difficulty breathing.

The sun is high.

Natasha drifts away on a breeze of agony, sinking into oblivion that is more welcome than she should let it be.

xXx

When she’s aware again, something is tugging at the numb portion of her leg, and she’s flat on her back in a bed of moss.  She has an impression of green and black, and smiles as she closes her eyes in resignation.

She wonders if the poison will bother the cat at all.

xXx

There are definitely fingers checking her pulse the next time she wakes, but she doesn’t open her eyes to look.  Somehow, she knows it’s Clint, caring for her as he’s always cared for her.

She whispers his name and drifts away again.

xXx

The dreams come eventually.  Dreams of all she’s done, everyone she’s betrayed.  These are mixed with things she’s always known would happen.  Her fingers coated in Tony Stark’s blood.  Fury standing over her, hand around her throat.  Clint falling off a cliff, her hand still reaching out.

There are other things that are no less real-feeling, but so strangely bizarre.  Loki hovering over her, green eyes sharp and watching as he mouths her name.  Thor laughing as he drags her into a strange dance that she knows all the steps to, but can’t remember learning.  Pepper Potts’ head thrown back as she moans, Natasha’s mouth in places that Natasha has never thought she’d put it.

And more Loki.  Loki’s green magic dancing up her leg and into her chest.  Loki’s hand squeezing tightly - too tightly - on her shoulder.  Loki’s magic again, forcing her heart to beat and her lungs to work.  Loki.  Loki here.

Loki was here.  He was _here_.  He was _right here_!

“NO!” she screams as she sits up, terrified and feeling weaker than anything ever.

She can only see the cat, crouching at her feet with his head tilted, before she leans over and vomits.  She can’t remember falling back again.

xXx

Finally, the dreams stop tormenting her, and she sleeps deeply and restfully.  Her rational mind, when she slowly climbs into consciousness, knows that her fever broke.  She’s not in a tree, or a bed of moss, but right where she fell asleep to begin with.

It’s her shirt tied around her leg still, but it’s _clean_.  There is no dried blood, hell, no evidence at all that she’d been injured.  Except a thin scar, a line overlapping two larger holes.

She lifts her eyes to stare at her surroundings, but no one is here.  No one is watching, and the cat is gone.  She’s alone.  More alone than she’s been since she woke up on that beach.  More alone than she ever was on Earth.  More alone than…  Than being broken to pieces, and building herself up again.

Natasha wants to cry in frustration.  Instead, she stumbles to her feet and walks.

xXx

She finds another little pond before sundown, only to realize it was the same pond as before.  She can see the days-old impressions of her feet, and those of the cat.  Days.  How long had she been sick?  How much time had she lost?

… where was her stalker?

Dropping to her knees beside the pond, she drinks, and drinks, and drinks, until she feels like puking.  She holds it back.  “Where are you?” she asks the canopy above her, staring up at it.  She thinks it’s probably a bad sign, that she’s so willing to talk now, when she wasn’t before.  But she still feels lonely, and maybe the sound of her voice will fill that hole.

It doesn’t.

Eventually, she gets up and continues on her path from before the fever, now that she has her bearings.  Some time passes before she realizes something is moving behind her, shadowing her steps.  She glances over and down to find the cat, waltzing along like he owns the whole forest, and has every right to be stalking her.

“You’re not a cat, are you,” she says to him, but doesn’t actually want an answer.

He doesn’t give her one, and continues along without reaction.  She sighs and starts thinking about more important things.

She still can’t help but wonder how she got here.  Why she’s here.  “I can’t remember anything,” she mutters to the cat.  “Well, I mean, some things, obviously.  But…  between what I was doing last back on Earth, and waking up…  there’s a gap.  I know this, but no matter what I do, I can’t…”

She’s talking to a cat.  A smart cat that she can’t help but label as something more.  She isn’t sure if Fury would laugh at her, or scold her for spilling details to a potential enemy.  But what does it matter?  There’s every chance that she won’t ever get home again.  It wasn’t like there was a spaceship magically placed on this island for her use, or even…

Natasha is paying too little attention, and she almost walks right off a cliff.  A hand catches her arm, even as the view takes her breath away.

Sea, going on forever, as if they stood on the only piece of land in the world.  Natasha sinks to her knees as she stares, trembling just slightly.  “There’s no way,” she whispers to him.  “No way to get out of here…”

“I am aware,” he murmurs.

She doesn’t even twitch.  A part of her had known, recognized him.  From the moment she’d met those almost familiar green eyes, maybe, Natasha had known who her companion was.  He’d saved her life, kept her alive when the poison from the snake would have killed her.  She doesn’t know _why_ , and suspects it has little to do with kindness.  If they were one another’s only allies, they needed to remain alive as long as possible to figure something out.

It was only sense, but her head hangs, and she feels like she’s waiting for the gallows.  Wonders if he’ll try to stab her in the back, when he hasn’t all this time.   _He’s probably even watched out for me, in the night_ , she muses, staring at the dirt beneath her knees.

“Is this it?” he demands then, voice hard and sharp, like a whip over her ears.  “You will just sit here and sink into your self-pity?  Let the world tear you apart?  Perhaps I should have let you fall to your death, as you have no use to me.”  Any good will she has evaporates.

She drags herself to her feet and stalks away from him into the forest proper, away from the cliff.  Loki follows, of course, and eventually she halts in her tracks, turns and glares right up into his face.  He’s taller than her, by at least four inches, maybe more.   _Probably_ more.

Natasha shoves his shoulder in frustration.  “This is all you, isn’t it?  I somehow got swept up into _your_ nonsense, or you did this, or-”

“I did not ‘do this’,” Loki sneers, not backing down.  He’s wearing armor, similar in style to that which he’d worn as they fought him in New York.  He crosses his arms and glares more.  “Nor is it a fault of _mine_.”

She crosses her arms too.  “Then how do you explain it?  Because I certainly don’t know where to start.”

“Clearly, we were placed here, for some reason or another,” Loki scoffs.  “And no, I do not know why."

 _Figures_.  Natasha exhales and turns away from him to continue walking, downhill this time instead of up.  Only a few minutes pass before she can hear him following, but she pays him no heed.  She determines to completely ignore him for the rest of the day.


	2. Trek Through the Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's perspective of the days leading up to the cliffside- he is perhaps even more lost than Natasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for taking so long! Forewarning, this chapter is much shorter than the last one, 'cause I fought for so long with my muses to write any of it. No, I will not continue rehashing things from each perspective- that gets tiresome fast. There were just some details that I needed to give, and I chose to do it this way. Thank you again for reading, and the next chapter will be longer, I promise!

He wakes up in a forest.  It is not the first time he has awoken in a place where he did not fall asleep, but what disturbs him the most is that he cannot quite recall where he succumbed to slumber.  Of course, that can lead to only one conclusion- he did not fall asleep, but was rendered unconscious.  


When he moves to sit up, he winces.  His body aches all over, and he suspects that has much to do with the fact that apparently he fell, because he is laying in a crater.  


Loki thinks he can remember something.  He thinks there was a man standing over where he lay, a man with kind blind eyes and a soft smile on his face.  But he considers this, and decides it was a dream, because a man like that would probably not throw him out of a space ship.  Or maybe a void.  


Either way, he’s still on the ground, so he gets up.  


Somewhere to his right, there is a flash of brilliant light, so bright that he covers his face and turns away just to escape it.  Once it is gone, Loki turns and walks after it, never one to deny curiosity.  


What he finds is a familiar female unconscious on a beach, and the edge of any sort of land for as far as he can see.  The ocean goes on and on, and he realizes he must be on some kind of island.  A big one, judging by the forest.  


The woman moves, and his attention is drawn back to her again.  Now he wonders why she is here.  Was this situation her doing?  Her master’s?  But no, he does not think she would still be here if that were the case, and this world does not feel like Midgard anyway.  


There is an uneasy… _fog_ in this place.  A blockage, and it worries him, because he cannot access the majority of his magic through it.  Some, of course, because he is Loki and he is powerful, but not all.  


More than worry, Loki feels angered.  Furious.  How dare anyone meddle with him so?  How dare they put him here!  He will find the one responsible, and they will pay, regardless of their plans.  


The human’s movement draws his focus once more.  She is standing now, stretching, rolling her shoulders.  He wonders at how calm she is about this, but shortly determines that it is a forced calm.  The woman is in control enough of herself to keep from panicking needlessly, and he is suddenly grateful for it.  If she’d been so helpless, he might just kill her and save her the future misery.  


From there, Loki follows her.  He watches her as she moves toward and through the forest, until she comes upon the crater he made and gapes at it.  They spend several minutes there, she just standing and staring, clearly lost in thought, until she moves to walk around the damaged earth and head further into the forest.  


Curious, he continues to haunt her steps.  He wonders what she will do, and how long it will take her human mind to break.  


She doesn’t break.  Day becomes night, as the woman makes camp and leaves out food while she sleeps.  He does think about taking it, making it look like an animal, but doesn’t.  It could be a trap- probably _is_ , considering who he’s dealing with.  


Instead, Loki transforms himself, becoming the predator of the jungle, and searches out larger animals than fish.  He finds a tree dweller, a primate of some kind, and makes do, before he returns to doze in a tree for the night.  


xXx  


Days pass, he following her, and he even tends her when she’s ill- not that he’ll tell her as much, but she seems to figure it out anyway.

“You’re not a cat, are you,” she murmurs distantly as he trails behind her to keep her from falling.  Her face is still ashen from the illness, and he doesn’t answer.  There’s no point now.

Eventually, the woman continues talking, rambling things at him that he almost dismisses.  But she’s telling him that his is not the only memory altered.  He wants to know who put them there, but he doesn’t ask, and she offers no suggestions.

They approach a cliff as he broods on this; he can hear the water far below, wave after wave crashing against the rocks.  He waits for her to change direction, but she doesn’t, and he eventually concludes that she doesn’t realize the danger.

_Of all the dull, inept senses_ , he snarls inwardly, transforming to catch hold of her and jerk her back.  The woman gasps and stares at the sudden sheer drop, not even fighting his hold.

Her frame is cold against him, cold and shaking, and her knees give out.  He lets her drop to the soil.  “There’s no way,” she says brokenly, a pathetic display of weakness.  “No way to get out of here…”

“I am aware,” he mutters, disgusted with her.  How dare she allow herself to break so easily, when once she tricked even him?  He had expected more of her...

She’s right, though, he’s forced to concede moments later.  It’s a thought that’s been itching at the back of his mind for days now, in truth; a doubt, a curse.  Even his magic cannot save him this time, and there is no one here with which he can bargain.  It is only himself, and the human woman that is not his ally.

A weak, pitiful creature, at that.  It’s so infuriating, because he knows she is not normally this way.  Whether from the strain of her new surroundings, or something else that he is not privy to, the _Avenger_ has allowed herself to fall.  He should have let her die.

“Is this it?” he demands, nonetheless urged to make use of possibly his only advantage.  Loki is not normally prone to kindness, but there has to be a reason she was placed in this forsaken forest as well.  He means to find it.  “You will just sit here and sink into your self-pity?  Let the world tear you apart?  Perhaps I should have let you fall to your death, as you have no use to me.”

His words have the desired effect, and his unfortunate companion pulls her mask together.  She stands and leaves him there on the cliff edge, anger replacing hopelessness, despite her exhaustion.  It fuels her steps for nearly an hour before she rounds on him with a furious glower, and has the gall to put her hands on his person.  The push is weak, though, ineffectual; he doesn’t let it move him, and in return her arms drop to hang stiff at her sides.

“This is all you, isn’t it?” she demands, and he glares at her.  She just goes on, without hesitation.  “I somehow got swept up into _your_ nonsense, or you did this, or-”

Valiantly, he smothers the urge to strangle her.  “I did not ‘do this’,” he tells her, but is satisfied with the return of her fire, her drive.  He can use her like this.  Point her and let go.  All he need do is say the right words, and he does as his arms fold before him.  “Nor is it any fault of _mine_.”

She backs up, metaphorically if not physically, and mimics his pose.  “Then how do you explain it?” she goads, but the origin of her mockery escapes him, so he ignores it.  “Because I certainly don’t know where to start.”

Yes, that much is _obvious_.  “Clearly, we were placed here, for some reason or another.  And no, I do not know why,” he adds when she opens her mouth to interject.  
  
She closes it and glares at him a beat, then turns suddenly away.  She says nothing at all to him as they walk through the forest again, downwards this time.  He expects her attack, though it is earlier in coming.  The sun hasn’t even set when she spins around, leg flashing out.  
  
He catches it and throws it away from him as the other tries to follow.  Her balance lost, she crumbles to the ground.  She doesn’t get up, staring down at the forest floor beneath her palms.  “Is this what it’s like for you?”  
  
The question takes him off guard, and he isn’t sure how to answer.  She doesn’t wait for one, though, and finally pushes herself to her feet, avoiding his gaze.  “Are you… always so alone?” 

Loki narrows his eyes on her.  Her actions are erratic- too much so.  “What game do you play?” he snarls angrily.

She does not answer.  They keep walking through the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and Avengers do not belong to me, but to their Marvel, Stan Lee and all associated thus. I am responsible for creating the story line only. Please do not take and use or post elsewhere without my permission.


End file.
